Theeratha Vilayattu Pillai - Trailer

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

Do you make resolutions? Do you stick to them? Do ya? Do ya? Do ya? Bet you don't.

As the t-shirt says (and BTW, just so you know, I didn't model for this picture) I don't. My thinking is that if you make your resolutions at the start of the year, you have 365 days to fuck it all up. However, if you choose a more arbitrary date as the kicking off point for a fresh start, and you mess up, you can just pick yourself up and start all over again - without waiting for January 1st to come round again. Make sense, no?

It's like going on a diet on a Monday morning. By elevenses that day you've munched your way through a mars bar, empire biscuit and a packet of crisps so you think, the hell with it and the rest of the week descends into an orgy of calories. Next Monday you start again only to eat a mars bar, empire biscuit....you getting my drift here people?

So I started to think about the aims I have for the next stretch of my life, the week before Xmas and started to modify my behaviour then - allowing for the fact that I would eat slightly more, exercise slightly less and do less writing during the holiday season.

It seems to me that an ongoing assessment of my stuff and an ongoing willingness to work towards my goals is much more effective than the trumpet blast and build up of a new calender year. Because then I will be more relaxed and forgiving of myself when (and it is inevitable) I slip up - and consequently in a better position to get right back on the horse. So to speak.

Here's to getting back on the horse and more success for each and every one of you than you can shake your tail at.

Michael

Looking back, looking ahead

On the last day of 2008, I predicted (after watching a bunch of January and February screeners) that 2009 was going to be a very good year in TV. And that's exactly how things turned out.

I don't know that 2010 will live up to that, but I've been watching screeners for the past few weeks(*), plus I know we have things like the final season of "Lost" - which may or may not disappoint, but is sure to not be dull - and HBO's new "The Pacific," "Treme" and "Boardwalk Empire," FX's "Justified," AMC's "Rubicon" (and, of course, "Breaking Bad") and more, all coming up.

(*) The four shows pictured above - "Life Unexpected" on CW, "Human Target" on Fox, "Chuck" season 3 and "Caprica" - will be premiering in the first few weeks of the year, and so far I've liked them all to varying degrees.

So after another relatively quiet week of TV, things are gonna start getting really interesting as of January 10th. Looking forward to seeing how it goes.

Happy New Year, everybody. Stay safe.

Antichrist [2009]

Antichrist might not be Lars von Trier’s best movie, but it might just be the one he would like to be remembered by. This movie has world cinema’s enfant terrible at his most unapologetically and unflinchingly provocative – a movie that has divided the house right down the middle. Technically the movie belongs in the horror genre; but any work by the Danish provocateur never really sticks to any genre conventions, in the same way that he gives the feather to the fact that moralists love to scorn him, as here, for his disturbing, often shocking, and at times even outrageous display of explicit sexual content, violence, nihilism, and misogyny (the latter, quite inappropriately, always seems to be stuck to his movies). Yet, for all its detractors, the movie is also an audacious, angry, disturbing wildly inventive, and even deeply poetic exposition and unraveling of the darkest corners of the human psyche. In fact, the movie’s prologue, shot in slow-mo black-and-whites, was to me filmmaking at its most ravishingly beautiful and devastating. Charlotte Gainsbourg, as a woman inconsolably grieving her infant son’s death, and William Defoe, as a psychotherapist and her not-so-grieving husband who takes his wife on as his patient, are fearless and brilliant. As a reviewer rightly put it, Antichrist is a movie that is to be experienced rather than explained. And that, had Alfred Hitchcock been alive, he would have loved to make this movie himself.





Director: Lars von Trier
Genre: Horror/Psychological Drama/Religious Drama
Language: English
Country: Denmark

lust for life

2010 anthem.

My face is stuffed

Not the same way I stuffed my face with turkey on December 25 ... mmmm turkey ... my face is now stuffed with something a little less appetizing and extremely annoying. My face is stuffed with phlegm. And I can't get it out no matter how hard I hork ... yes, I said hork. I tried a hot steamy shower ... but after 5 minutes was barely warm because I wasn't paying attention to how long T-Bone showered for and he drained the hot water tank before I could build up any steam. But it was an attempt none the less and it didn't work. I have been gargling with salt water and when my hot water tank filled up again, I kneeled for 10 minutes infront of my bathroom sink with a towel over my head and the hot water running. Kneeling on my bathroom floor and trying to hork ... sexy! And the day before New Years Eve .... absolute and utter bullshit. Even more-so because the same damn thing happened last year and I swear to god, it happened the same damn day. I  spent last New Years Eve at T-Bone's condo curled up in a chair in front of his TV with a glass of wine watching hockey games and texting all my friends who were out having a fabulous time ringing in the New Year begging me to chug some meds, ditch the sweat pants, and meet them for a celebratory shooter .. or 5. But I didn't and I was too sick to care ... well, that and the fact that T-Bone made an unbelievable comment that I thought was worth a fight. My bad? I don't think so ...

So what in the world did I do to deserve this again? I was already sick ... sometime in Novemer? Can't remember, but give me a break. It was bad enough that I felt like shit 6 hours after posting my last blog o blues when I learned that T-Bone's family had put their 13 year old and very loved dog down. My Christmas blues seemed like garbage after that. I had a house full of love and happiness and presents galore, and 2 days later, a flu that hit me so hard I didn't know what to do with myself. 48 hours later, I'm left with a slight headache and a face full of snot! And I'm pissed right off. I work full time with only 3 weeks vacation after 10 years in. And I've had a long year ... a great year, but a long year. More things have changed in my life in 2009 than in the 4 years before combined and not only have I earned this 10 days off work as a functioning human being, I earned the right to celebrate tomorrow night. If not at a bar with my good friends dancing, drinking, celebrating, having a good ol time preparing for the following couch and gatorade day, then at least, at the very friggin least, in bed with T-Bone without him avoiding me so not to breathe in my infected air ... hell, we don't even have to face each other, there are ways around that ya know, even a pillow over the face ... his or mine, I'm not picky. Really.

The weather outside is frightful

We've spent this week lounging by the fire, eating hot soup and playing games. We've had a constant stream of holiday company, including my daughter's friend Free Spirit. She's a massage therapist who loves to cook vegan food, which makes her an ideal addition to the household. She's baked vegan chocolate cake TWICE already. We're trying to bribe her to live with us indefinitely.

A crackling fire keeps the humans in the house happy, but the cats hate being confined to the house in this icy weather. I've tried to keep them on their good behavior by feeding them catnip, which makes them act stoned and happy. Unfortunately, neither catnip nor Feliway spray worked to keep Trouble, the grey male cat, out of the Christmas village under the tree. After he peed on it a second time, I packed up the village and put it away to prevent a third incident, which surely would have led to feline homicide.

One of the great things about having everyone home is that we have live music all the time. Usually either Shaggy Hair Boy, Quick, or With-a-Why is at the piano, so we've got a constant stream of classical music or jazz while the rest of us do the important work of lounging on the couch and eating leftover holiday food.



The cat in the photo is Emmy, not the evil Trouble. And that's With-a-Why at the piano.

Bella Watt - To Recover What Has Been (EP) (2007)

Auch diese EP von Bella Watt ist die pure Abwechslung. Der Song "Monocular Dystrophy" könnte ein Song von A Perfect Circle sein. Generell erinnern mich die Gesangslinien sehr an einen MJK bei APC. Viel Spaß.
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This EP from Bella Watt is also a very interesting and alternating one. In my opinion the song "Monocular Dystrophy" could be a A Perfect Circle song. Generally the voicelines on this EP reminds me very hard on a MJK with APC. Have fun with this one too.

Genre: Indie, Psychedelic, Experimental
128 kbit/s (CBR)
(24:21)

Preview:


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my favorite albums of 2000's

This list doesn't mean anything except that I loved these albums because they integrated themselves into my life like living beings, and sometimes they acted as stronger friends to me than my actual friends in the way they listened to the silent yearning and raging of my heart and body, like we were connected by some invisible magnetic thread, and the way they spoke to me and for me when I had no power to use my own voice to sing. It's been a really hectic 10 years! So fuck Pitchfork and Rolling Stone and Spin and Fader and NME. These ten albums mattered most to me.*

*Honorable mentions: The Libertines: The Libertines, Myths of the Near Future: Klaxons, Oracular Spectacular: MGMT, Fever to Tell: Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Amnesiac: Radiohead, The Marshall Mathers LP: Eminem and anything else recorded by the 10 acts below.

10. Back to Black, Amy Winehouse, 2006

I'm surprised too. But the more time I spend with this album the more I feel like Amy Winehouse knows what she's talking about, even a little bit more than Pete Doherty and The Libertines who she kicked out of my top 10. A song like "Love is a Losing Game" perfectly describes the futility in trying to find a trustworthy and permanent partner. "Five story fire as you came/Love is a losing game" means you can find yourself floored by a man and want to start new with him and give it your all (like, know, meeting the love of your life in a frat house basement) but ultimately you will wind up alone and heartbroken again (4 years later). "Back to Black" is a beautiful, bittersweet reminder to watch your own back in the dirty dealings of love and sex because everyone's out for himself in this world. You should be too.

9. We All Belong, Dr. Dog, 2007/Takers and Leavers EP, Dr. Dog, 2006

Dr. Dog opened for The Raconteurs on tour in 2006, and I kinda fell in love with them due solely to the fact that Toby Leaman looks like a short hipster version of my favorite professor and the gut-wrenching, Bob Dylan-leaning Beatness of "Die Die Die," quite possibly one of the best songs ever written.

8. '07, The Virgins, 2007/Self-Taught Learner, Lissie Trullie, 2009

I highly prefer The Virgins' EP to their full-length debut because Donald Cumming's the kind of boy who deserves to keep it simple and dirty. He does better with his sinus infection vocals and rough, homemade 8-track production. (He does best naked in photos by Ryan McGinley or on stage in telephone-patterned red skintight leggings.) Songs like "Fernando Pando" and "Radio Christiane" made me feel at home in a big city like New York, and seeing the Virgins as much as possible from NYE 07 to the present has helped me to love this place more than any other. Not to mention, Donald's kinda my dream man, after Julian Casablancas, of course.

I put Lissy Trullie into the same position because she's friends with the band, and I found her thru loving The Virgins. In reverse, though, I like her full-length better than her demos because she collabs with everyone's favorite crack addict Adam Green on a poignant cover of "Just a Friend" and she includes the song that got me into her, "You Bleed You." Also "Don't to Do" was pretty much my anthem during my break-up over this past summer, and I love love love Lissy's man fashion-influenced style.

7. Little Joy, Little Joy, 2008

Fabulous Moretti doesn't let us down with his "solo"-ish debut with Rodrigo Amarante and gf Binki Shapiro. Songs like "With Strangers" and "Play the Part," with their quiet acceptance of failure and sadness, made me feel okay this summer when I ate anxiety for breakfast and swallowed disappointment like anti-depressants (in lieu of health insurance and its over-medicating benefits.) "Unattainable" sung by Binki with her innocent, assured voice makes me want to love a man that deserves it. Out of all the Strokes' solo/side efforts, Fab and Little Joy take the cake.

6. Album, Girls, 2009

I can't help it; I'm obsessed. I listen to this one non-stop because it's so damn good. Christopher Owens could come into my apartment and stay for 56 weeks without paying rent, or I would cook casseroles for him and leave them outside in a dog house beside baggies of weed that I personally bought (shock!) and sew him a delux set of sheets and pillows so he could sleep all day long. Or he could curl up in my bed in a ratty thrift-store sweater knitted circa 1972 and sing with his Elvis Costello croon into my ear all night. I don't do drugs, but I'd drop a Valium or 2 with him and let him cry over my naked body all night long. Some people say sex is the motivation behind all creative endeavors, and I kind believe it because Owens and his band mate JR White made this awesome awesome awesome sunshine-in-hell breakup album on pills of all kinds, and you know a breakup hangover is really just the sick realization that you'll never get to fuck that girl (or boy) again. This album makes me happy that I'm sad and sad that I'm happy in spite of myself. It's like the record that spins me round, round, baby, right round, like a record baby round, right round, round, which must explain why this sucker's been on repeat since I bought it.

5. Friends of Mine, Adam Green, 2003

I've sung his praises on this blog before. The guy's the sad song writing maestro, and with his unpredictable antics he puts on one of the most entertaining and ridiculous live shows. Adam Green, I bow to you. Your drug-addled craziness belies your musical seriousness and talent. But if you can write a song like "Bungee" that has become an actual component of my soul I will follow you down whatever roads your music takes you for the rest of my life.

4. The New Fellas, The Cribs, 2005

The Cribs came to me by accident; I'm pretty sure I found them while cyber-stalking Misshapes protege Jackson Pollis, aka Kids Meal while I was living in Tremont. I fell in love with their bad vocals (especially Ryan Jarman's) and lo-fi-ish production. "I'm Alright Me" became my nihilistic anthem and made me feel okay when I over-imbibed and over-caffeinated and didn't care and didn't sleep. Seeing the Cribs for the first time made me fall in love for life, and with each album they've grown consistently, showing that hard work pays off and bad teeth and bad hair and bad fashion in general make for the output of some damn fine songs about living young and fast in a tour van.

3. Favourite Worst Nightmare, Arctic Monkeys, 2007

They might be young and they might have been hyped up the wazoo in 2006, but Alex Turner can write inner anger better than anyone I've yet to find (except for Kurt Cobain.) His relentless use of Matt Helders' immaculate and powerful drumming over atmospheric guitars and 1950's obscure rock song loops make music so haunting and potent and dangerous that you just want to stab yourself in the face. I hold anger in my body for years, and it takes me a long time to get over anything, so to have this album confirm the rightness of such an unhealthy and wrong harboring of negativity makes me feel like it's a little bit okay, or at least like I'm in good, hot company. "Do Me a Favour" and "505" make me die a little bit every time, and when I finally make my movie (you know, a neo-New Wave crazy train semi-autobiographical coming of age flick featuring a blonde with a chic haircut and black-lined blue eyes) the music from this album will pretty much take over the entire soundtrack.

2. White Blood Cells, The White Stripes, 2001

Jack White's a force of fucking nature, and I could listen to this album for the rest of my life. "The Union Forever" starts with a flippant, fuck-you guitar riff and says, "It can't be love, for there is no true love." How true, Jackie, how true. The song then devolves into a grunge-tastic, bitter, slightly out-of-control reinterpretation of Citizen Kane... Egomaniacs must love each other, I guess, and Orson Welles and Jack White will surely meet each other in Hell or wherever geniuses go when they die.

1. Room on Fire, The Strokes, 2003

Duh! What did you expect? Oh, yeah. Is This It? Like every other countdown on the planet. Well I'm no first album lover. I like sophomore efforts, and while Is This It? changed my life and personality and goals and dreams (I stopped worshipping fuck face Billy Corgan's melodrama and traded it in for sleek, magnetic structure; I let my neurotic nature and demands fly; I decided I would one day move to New York City and make out with drunken bed-headed dirty boys; I would see the Strokes LIVE ONE DAY) Room on Fire solidified all that. When Julian Casablancas wrote "12:51" he wrote the perfect pop song. When he wrote "Under Control" he wrote the song of my life. When he wrote "I Can't Win" he wrote about the failings every artist faces at the hands of his own worst enemy: himself. Some people say that they like all music and all songs and all things, but I'm the kind of girl who loves ALWAYS one of whatever it is the best, and Room on Fire is not only my favorite album of The Aughts, it's also my desert island album, one of my best friends, and pretty much the only thing that can make me close my eyes and sob for sheer amazement and gratitude when I'm not absolutely wasted. So thank you, Jules and Co. for this little gem. You've made my decade and life worth living, and that's a cliche and an overstatement (classic Brittany hyperbole) but it's also very true (classic Brittany doesn't lie.)

Bella Watt - The Mirror Test (2009)

Bella Watt nannte sich eine sehr sympatische Band aus New York. Zur Zeit scheinen sie auch aufgelöst zu sein. Dennoch hat uns Jeff, der Bassist der Gruppe, gebeten ihre Alben Online zu stellen. Sie kreiieren eine ganz besondere Mischung aus den verschiedensten Stilrichtungen und überzeugen mit Abwechslung. Der Gesang passt fügtsich optimal in die Soundstrukturen ein und das Output kann sich wirklich hören lassen. Ein Werk, das nicht in einem Hördurchlauf bezwungen werden kann. Das Album entwickelt sich mit jedem Mal.
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Bella Watt was a very likeable band from NYC. At this time it semms to be that the band is broken up, but Jeff (the bassist) nevertheless asked us to put their releases online. Bella Watt created an especial mix of different genres and satisfies the listener with alternation. The voices fits perfectly into the sound-structures. For these reasons the output is really enjoyable but i think this is a release that nobody is able to grab at once. The album is developing itself with every run.

Genre: Indie, Psychedelic, Experimental
192 kbit/s (CBR)
(49:35)

Preview:


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Red Light Chamber Choir - We're In Trouble But We Don't Know What To Do (2007)

Red Light Chamber Choir trumpfen mit ihrem ganz eigenen sehr düsteren PostRock-Stil auf. Man verliert sich in Gedanken, in traurigen Gedanken. Für mich der deprimierendste PostRock, der mir in den letzten Monaten untergekommen ist. Leider ist dieses wunderbare Projekt derzeit auf "Eis" gelegt. Auf jeden Fall äußerst empfehlenswert!
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The trump-card of Red Light Chamber Choir is the very dire style of PostRock. You lose yourself in mind, a very doleful mind. For me RLCC is one of the most depressive PostRock-Bands i discovered in a long time. This band is also on hiatus. I hope they'll be back soon. By all means really really commendable!

Genre: Post Rock
160 kbit/s (CBR)
(38:42)

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The Weak Men - Weak Men DOG (2007)

Schöner, melancholischer PostRock! Erinnert mich sehr stark an EF oder Immanu El. Die Band hat sich leider schon aufgelöst. Auf LastFM findet man sie ungerechtermaßen in der Gruppe "Underapreciated Post-Rock Bands", welchem ich Voll und Ganz zustimme. Sie waren und sind underrated. Diese Band hätte es verdient gehabt, mehr gehört zu werden. Woran es gelegen hat, dass sie keinen Durchbruch hatten liegt in den Sternen.
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Beautiful, melancholic PostRock! They remind me on EF or Immanu El. The band broke up too early. Sadly you can find them on LastFM in the group "Underapreciated Post-Rock Bands" that i have to agree with. Unfortunately they are/were really underrated. This band should have had more listeners. At least you can help them now and listen them in memorial! I can't understand why they did not have a breakthrough in this genre.

Genre: Post Rock
128 kbit/s (CBR)
(45:57)

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Obama Official: Old Regime Made Mistakes Too

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FREUDIAN SLIP or HUBRIS?

Something that catches the eye in an American reader.

Does anyone feel any better after reading this?

From Official defends Gitmo plan:

HONOLULU — A senior Obama administration official pushed back against critics of the White House’s plans to transfer some detainees at Guantanamo Bay to Yemen as it moves toward closing the facility, saying the process for transfers are “consistent with our national security interests.”
[...]
“I am aware of a lot of people pointing back at the way the transfers were handled under the Bush administration that apparently they have some concerns about that,” said the official, who had not seen the senators’ letter. “I didn’t hear many of those concerns at the time, but there were obviously hundreds and hundreds of detainees that were transferred under the old regime.”

Regime?

Regime?

We don't have no stinkin' regimes in America. Or do we?

Ed Morrissey and Allahpundit at Hot Air noticed too.

Regime? We don’t have regimes in the US — or we didn’t until now. Is the Obama White House comfortable with calling themselves the present “regime”?

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ALSO at DBKP--Old Regime: Obama Official Refers to Bush Terms as ‘Regime’

While the "official" isn't identified, it's one that is fairly close to the president since 1-the Politico item is datelined "Honolulu", where the president is vacationing; and, 2-the official is pushing back against an important pillar of Obama's "security strategy".

Expect to see others to notice--if they haven't already.

Makes those people who warned of the dangerous encroachments to free speech and civil liberties that are coming out of this administration seem just a little less paranoid, no?



NOTE TO SELF: Make sure to check this post to see if there's anything that might upset the present regime before publishing.


by Mondo Frazier
image: Freakingnews

Better Off Ted, "It's Nothing Business, It's Just Personal": Better dead than red

A quick review of last night's "Better Off Ted" coming up just as soon as I help my daughter build a house of Legos...

That's more like it. The first few episodes of this season had funny bits here and there, but "It's Nothing Business" was the first one that reminded me of the stronger installments from last spring. It had physical comedy (Veronica sleeping sitting up, Ted's tiny office), a bit of farce (every one of Ted's attempts to interfere in Veronica's relationship with Mordor making things worse) and some sharper, more ridiculous corporate satire in the use of the red labcoat and everyone's reaction to it.

Don't forget that there's a new episode (and a new, JD-free "Scrubs") on Friday after the Rose Bowl, allegedly at 8:30 Eastern, but possibly airing later due to the unpredictability of live sporting events. I'm planning to pad my "Ted" recording by 90 minutes, which oughta do the trick of capturing both. And if not, there's always Hulu the next morning.

What did everybody else think?

Xmas.....

If Xmas is all about family, then my partner and I have been incredibly lucky this year to have caught up with so many members of all our extended family.  Xmas day was filled with a blend of the two, where his family came to spend Xmas with my family, at my parents' house.... and it was inspring to see Xmas through the eyes of children again.   

Phoebe is a wee delight and it is wonderful having her and her gorgeous sisters here. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, the grown ups also joined in the dress ups with a  vengeance....

 

 

and it was a hot, glorious day full of laughter, great food and a quick skype to catch up with my brother in Vancouver, where James and Jess also spent Xmas - they put up their Xmas pictures at http://jamesandjess.synthasite.com/news/vancouver

Boxing day was spent recovering, exploring the boardwalk around the lake across our road.... cooler weather, but at least we walked off the Xmas feasting.

Finally, on Sunday, my partner got together with his two brothers... the annual get together, although they all live locally so we do see them in between! Managed to get them out for a photo with some of the children ....

We have the family here for New Years - so having a party here at home... a small one anyway. 

Being surrounded by the family has helped me remember what is important in my life!  Good health and happiness...

Wishing you all the best for a wonderful New Year.

Xmas.....

If Xmas is all about family, then my partner and I have been incredibly lucky this year to have caught up with so many members of all our extended family.  Xmas day was filled with a blend of the two, where his family came to spend Xmas with my family, at my parents' house.... and it was inspring to see Xmas through the eyes of children again.   

Phoebe is a wee delight and it is wonderful having her and her gorgeous sisters here. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As you can see, the grown ups also joined in the dress ups with a  vengeance....

 

 

and it was a hot, glorious day full of laughter, great food and a quick skype to catch up with my brother in Vancouver, where James and Jess also spent Xmas - they put up their Xmas pictures at http://jamesandjess.synthasite.com/news/vancouver

Boxing day was spent recovering, exploring the boardwalk around the lake across our road.... cooler weather, but at least we walked off the Xmas feasting.

Finally, on Sunday, my partner got together with his two brothers... the annual get together, although they all live locally so we do see them in between! Managed to get them out for a photo with some of the children ....

We have the family here for New Years - so having a party here at home... a small one anyway. 

Being surrounded by the family has helped me remember what is important in my life!  Good health and happiness...

Wishing you all the best for a wonderful New Year.

sweet thoughts for the tortured mind

I got to see one of my faves today, and he gave me these sweet gloves. I'm all smiles and no sleep.

Soup! Glorious soup!

My blog is five years old – and I think in all that time, I’ve only posted one recipe. So today I’ve decided to share my top-secret recipe for delicious vegetable soup.

The glory of vegetable soup is that you make it with whatever you happen to have in the house. It’s especially good for using up vegetables that are starting to get soft and wilt a bit around the edges. Making soup requires no talent and no concentration. Today, for example, I made soup while listening to Beautiful Smart Daughter, Boy in Black, and Free Spirit play the game Scattergories in front of the fire. I’ve often made it while supervising the little neighbor kids as they color pictures at the table.

To make the soup, I first yell for someone tall to get me the stockpot from the high shelf in our laundry room. (If no one tall is around, I have to drag over a kitchen chair.) Then I fill the stockpot partway with water – a couple of quarts or so. I rummage through the cupboards for any kind of tomato product. Today, for instance, I dumped in a big can of crushed tomatoes and a can of diced tomatoes.

Then I begin chopping up anything will give the soup some flavor: a couple of onions, some cloves of garlic, several stalks of celery. If I’m feeling especially ambitious, I’ll sautee the onions first, but most of the time, I don’t bother. I cut them up and dump them in. I’m a lazy cook.

Then I look through the refrigerator for any vegetables I can find. We always have carrots, which I like to add just for the color and texture. And usually we’ve got some peppers, too, some broccoli, and some squash. Today, I found a half a bag of fresh baby spinach and dumped that in too. If I have any overripe tomatoes on the counter, I chop them up as well. Sometimes I add potatoes, but only if I’m in the mood for chunks of potatoes. And they don’t freeze well, so I leave them out if I’m planning to freeze some of the soup.

I chop up vegetables and throw them in the pot until I get bored. Then I take a break to check my email, put another log on the fire, or unload the dishwasher. Then I decide to go the easy route and find veggies in the freezer: usually a bag of corn and a bag of lima beans. I dump those in and give the pot a stir. I add more water from the tea kettle if the soup isn’t liquidy enough. Then I make myself a cup of tea and sit down to read the mail.

At some point, I start adding spices: a handful of oregano, a big handful of basil, a pinch of fennel, a couple of bay leaves. The only thing I ever measure is the salt and pepper. I use ¼ teaspoon of pepper and a teaspoon of salt. I don’t know why I bother to measure them: it’s a tradition I guess.

Just as the soup is beginning to smell good, I start rummaging through the cupboards for beans. Always, I use a couple cans of kidney beans, but sometimes I add chickpeas too, or pretty much any kind of bean I can find. By then the stockpot will be getting pretty full. I only know how to make huge quantities of soup.

The last thing I chop up are scallions, if I have them, fresh basil if I have some, pretty much any herbs I can find. And then an entire bunch of parsley. I always buy parsley when I’m planning to make soup. I think the green makes the soup looks so much healthier. I dump in random spices as the mood strikes me: today, for instance, I dumped in some celery seed.

When the soup is done, I offer it to anyone in the house. “Eat some vegetable soup! It’s health food for Ultimate players.” The glory of soup is that it’s an entire meal, all in one pot. And it’s healthy! My household is very tired of hearing me say that. You have no idea.

Midnite Media Will Return...

...shortly after the New Year...
...sorry, hipsters. Things are kind of hectic right now...
--J/Metro

Barking Dogs Never Bite [2000]

The refreshingly offbeat movie Barking Dogs Never Bite, by Korean filmmaker Bong Joon-ho, has all those thematic and stylistic aspects, quirks and trademark tar-black black humour that would reach memorable heights three years later in his Memories of Murder. Like the latter, this darkly funny movie managed to make me laugh and cringe simultaneously by gleefully throwing sharp, pointed jabs at the darker aspects of human nature and society. With an aptly discordant yet snazzy Jazz soundtrack as accompaniment, the movie presents the ordinary-as-hell lives of a dog-hating university lecturer married to a nagging wife and hoping to someday find enough money to bribe his way to a long overdue promotion, and a neurotic young girl who spends all her days doing tidbits of community service in the hope that someday it’ll earn her fame and recognition. The director, through his whimsical comic placements, ironies and searing observations, has made these two otherwise utterly mundane characters – in essence fringe personas of the society – unique, distinctive and utterly commendable through generous interjections of idiosyncrasies in their personalities and in their interactions. And like Ameros Perros, I'd strongly advise dog lovers & PETA activists to stay away from this one too.





Director: Bong Joon-ho
Genre: Comedy/Black Comedy/Social Satire
Language: Korean
Country: South Korea

If Only: Maybe Both Janet Napolitano Systems Worked

A TALE OF TWO SYSTEMS

HOW THE SYSTEM WORKED IN JANET NAPOLITANO's MIND
--EVEN AFTER SHE SAID IT FAILED

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IF ONLY...
The Undibomber's Name had been Billy Bob Abdulmutallab

Let me see if I have this right.

• A terrorist from Nigeria boards a plane in Amsterdam and attempts to blow it up on its approach to Detroit.
  
  
• He fails, in large part, because he only fried his frank and beans instead of NWA 523's fuel tanks.
  
  
• The Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (the greatest federal oxymoron going today) then goes on to defend the procedures that allowed said terrorist to board the plane--even though it failed because of the actions of everyone BUT the DHS. Her words were the now-infamous, "The system worked".
  
  
• Napolitano goes on to say that he's not a part of any terrorist plot--even though he was on a terrorist watch list and evidently had just been to Islamist hotbed Yemen. Where he'd been instructed by the same cleric that "advised" the Ft. Hood shooter.

There was more, but that's the highlights.

Napolitano, after much grief from, well, almost everyone that wasn't nursing an Oxycontin addiction, backtracked and conceded that the system "failed miserably".

Oh, and by the way, she was taken out of context--and she had a cute little number called "It was Bush's fault".

Here's Napolitano's first statement:

NAPOLITANO: What we are focused on is making sure that the air environment remains safe, that people are confident when they travel. And one thing I’d like to point out is that the system worked. Everybody played an important role here. The passengers and crew of the flight took appropriate action.

Hours later, Napolitano recanted, agreeing with Matt Lauer that the "system failed miserably".

---

WHICH SYSTEM FAILED?
WHICH "SYSTEM WORKED" WAS JANET NAPOLITANO REFERRING TO?
WAS SHE RIGHT BOTH TIMES?


What hasn't been discussed (at least that this writer's knowledge) is exactly which system Janet Napolitano was referring to. Was it the system to keep foreign terrorists from killing Americans--because that system was an epic fail--both in the Ft Hood shootings and the attempted NWA 523 bombing.

Or was it the system to prevent "domestic terrorists" composed of anti-tax, recession-suffering ex-military conservatives from running amok in the streets doing God-knows-what? Because apparently, that system has been a stunning success.

The agency's report, "Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment," was published last week and said right-wing extremist groups may be using the recession and the election of the nation's first African-American president to recruit members.

So maybe everyone's being too hard on Napolitano: maybe both of her statements were correct.

When she said "the system worked" just maybe she was thinking of the fact that no airliners have been brought down by the vast far right wing militia conspiracy of her April 2009 report.

And she'd be right.

When she realized exactly what everyone was talking about, she appeared and agreed that "the system failed miserably"--because then she was referring to the system that is supposed to keep Americans from being blown up by foreign jihadis.

She's right again! So Secretary Napolitano is, in reality, batting 1.000 on DHS "system" assessments.

Perhaps, she's even owed an apology!

Ace can go first.

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IF ONLY...

Read the rest: Both Napolitano Systems Worked: If Only.


by Mondo Frazier
images: DBKP file; PatDollard.com